


Nightmares and Cuddles

by thatgirl_youknowtheone



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Insomnia, Nightmares, Panic Attack, Some minor violence, also I hardcore polyship these three, anxiety attack, but it's not super overt if you aren't into that, can be read as just a great friendship, eh, got a lotta millenial humour, like dream violence tho so???, lotta swearing, poor Danny is having a rough day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-11-29 12:22:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11440782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatgirl_youknowtheone/pseuds/thatgirl_youknowtheone
Summary: Tucker shook Danny as violently as he subtly could, he needed to wake up. He needed to wake the fuck up right the fuck right NOW. FUCK. It was panic time, shit was getting dangerously identity revealing up in here and Tucker had to do something about it.





	Nightmares and Cuddles

**Author's Note:**

> I was prompted on tumblr to write a thing about Danny having nightmares so this was it ~

"OKAY THIS IS FINE." Danny said aloud to the floor. He didn't really intend the floor to be the recipient of his ire but it was where his face was currently planted so it would just have to ding darn diddly deal with it.

Danny had experienced his fair share of being stuck in awkward positions but this one had rivalled many of his top ten, and he hadn't even been thrown across a room by a ghost to achieve it! Nope, he just fell out of bed.

One arm was flung out before him, the other awkwardly pulled behind his back, still twisted up in his bedsheets, along with his leg. Just the one leg, the other was hanging - in quite a remarkable display of inhuman dexterity - over his shoulder.

All it took was some gut wrenching, heart stopping, bile inducing nightmares. Nothing fancy really, just the visceral image of everyone he loved and cared about DYING from TOO MUCH FIRE right in front of his eyes as he watched helplessly. Yep.

"THIS IS FINE." Danny said again, a little louder this time. The carpet smelled like feet, Danny decided maybe he should take his eating hole off the gross floor before he caught a foot fungus on his lip. He knew it was possible, it happened to Ricky Marsh once at camp.

Yeah Danny should REEEAAAALLY get his face off that carpet. Right now, yep. He was gonna get up at this very mome-

Jazz heard a loud snore come from Danny's bedroom. He was supposed to be up half an hour ago, school started in ten minutes. But she knew he had a plate piled high with superhero shenanigans that kept him up at obnoxiously late hours nine nights out of ten. The bags under his eyes could hold all the homework he never got done, with extra space for his unfinished chores.

Jazz was fully prepared to sneak in and firmly tuck him into bed with ghost proof sheets, a lie, an excuse and at least three compromises balanced on her tongue ready to jump at any parent and/or teacher that wanted her brother out of the warm sanctuary of bed today. Then she heard his gentle snores twist into a devastatingly soul crushing little whimper.

Oh boy, that wasn't good.

Jazz opened her brother's bedroom door and quietly peered inside to find... no one. He wasn't there. Typical ghost bullshi-

Jazz had almost closed the door when she heard it again, that tiny little whimper. Was he invisible? She thought to herself, barely acknowledging how fucking weird her life had gotten that that question came so naturally to her.

Jazz padded into the room and found that Danny had, somehow, managed to fall asleep on the floor beside his bed. One leg still hanging in the air via blanket sling, it was almost funny, until he screamed that is.

Jazz nearly jumped out of her spotty blue socks when a noise ripped out of her sleeping brother's throat, a noise that honestly could have come from the cutting room floor of a horror flick that was deemed too terrifyingly violent to be shown on screens literally anywhere. His back was arched, his mouth wide, hands curled in on themselves, he almost looked as though he were convulsing.

It stopped suddenly, with a gasp and a jolt Danny woke. He didn't shoot up or flail about, he just laid down on the floor, eyes blearily noticing that there was another person in the room. Jazz sat down by his side as he wiped his face, staring at the tears on his hands.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

Danny glared at her.

"Sorry, standard question." Jazz mumbled as she unhooked his foot from the clinging bedsheets. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Danny, still laying on the floor, swung his right arm around, it had gone numb and tingly, the kind of numb and tingly that really hecking hurt when he started moving it again, yeesh.

"I had this really gnarly dream," he started as he massaged his arm, Jazz listened intently. "I ordered a sandwich without mayo but when I bit into it there was mayo like, EVERYWHERE and-"

Jazz dropped a pillow on his face.

"That was rude." Danny's muffled voice grumbled.

"If you don't want to talk about it you can just say so instead of being an asshole." Jazz huffed as she found a pair of jeans and a shirt that were Clean Enough and threw them at the pillow. "You were crying and screaming, I was WORRIED."

Danny pulled the pillow and clothes away and looked at his sister, actually looked her in the face. Her eyebrows were pulled tight and she was gnawing on her bottom lip, she really did look worried. Danny sat up and fished a somewhat pungent binder from under his bed, Pariah's Oath he really needed to do his laundry.

"I don't want to talk about it." he stared down at his hands, face suspiciously neutral.

"Okay." Jazz's voice was gentle, she wasn't going to push it, she'd learned a long time ago that it always just made things worse. "That's okay, just know you can always talk to me, alright?"

Danny stood up and stretched, joints cracking and popping in a way that made Jazz want to barf. He could feel his arm again, thank the Ancients.

"You say that now, but every time a new rocket model comes out-"

"Bye Danny." Jazz fucked off faster than Johnny's shadow at dawn, absolutely Not wanting to stick around for another geeky space rant. Danny's shit eating grin followed her out the door until it clicked shut, suddenly dropping back into the deadass tired face of a student who was entirely convinced that consistent sleep schedules were a myth.

He was not okay, ooooh he was so not okay.

Falling asleep again had been a mistake, a GRAVE mista- no okay, no, that pun was just inappropriate. He'd just had not one, but TWO disgustingly detailed nightmares about Literally Everyone dying, death puns were OFF the table right now.

Regular puns were still on the cards though, he thought to himself as he plopped his Little Pocket Book of Puns on top of a deck of cards sitting on his desk. He was proud of that one, in fact he snapchatted it, his smug face squeezed into the corner of the shot by the words 'passng chem is off the cards bt my puns arnt'. It was easy to fool people with photos, he only had to pull off one good smile and people thought he was fine.

The flood of horrified snapchats he received in return made him giddy. Everything from a two minute video of Valerie trying not to hurl to a picture of Dash's middle finger. Danny grinned, his grin looked genuine, it was not.

"This is fine." he lied.

*RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRING*

Danny barely made it through the door before the bell went off, he celebrated his victory with a very brief and offensively outdated dance move before Tucker threw a pen at his head and the teacher told him to sit down before he hurt himself.

Danny's goofy grin remained plastered onto his face as he sat next to Tucker, who was giving him the kind of look that was usually reserved for the weird surrealist internet videos Nathan always tagged him in on Facebook.

"You are like..." Tucker started, fiddling with the broken nib of his stylus. "Super hyper today what the fu-"

"Language, Foley." the homeroom teacher deadpanned from behind his book.

"Sorry sir! But seriously what the fuck dude." Tucker continued at a still very perceptible volume. The teacher sighed heavily.

"It's cool I'm fine I just got like two hours of sleep and drank five coffees in ten minutes I think I can hear colours." Danny's eye twitched.

Tucker didn't laugh, Danny was trying to be funny but it was like, twelve year old funny. He sighed and lowered his voice.

"You're having nightmares again aren't you." Tucker stared through Danny's plastic grin with serious eyes. "We talked about this Danny, I told you to STOP faking this shit with me. You know what happens when you don't get enough sleep, you get really fucking weird."

"Did you get my snapchat this morning?" Danny asked as though he hadn't heard a single word his best friend had just said.

"Yes, it was awful and I hate you." The jab had no bite, Tucker couldn't stand seeing Danny like this, it was like some awful parody of his friend amped up to eleven. He didn't bother trying to talk sense into him, sense was gone, sense was out the window, sense was on the next plane to god damn Timbuktu.

Danny's giddiness didn't let up a single inch throughout their first couple of morning classes. He had stupid jokes and shitty puns hidden up every sleeve in the building, and the tiniest little thing would set him off giggling. Star smacked a fly with a ruler, Danny literally fell off his chair laughing.

Mr Lancer gave Tucker permission to drag Danny out into the hallway to calm down. Tucker grimaced in apology as he dragged along a snorting Danny by the sleeve, the rest of the class having a good laugh of their own.

"Do you think he's like, actually on drugs or something?" Tucker heard Paulina whisper not even remotely quietly as they left the room.

The moment the classroom door had closed, Tucker slammed Danny against the wall.

"DUDE! GET. A. GRIP." Tucker was not even in the general vicinity of fucking around right now. Danny needed to chill his tits before he got into serious trouble, the last thing he needed was a detention lumped on top of the pile of reasons Danny's life was a train wreck.

Danny clenched his teeth, his eyes were wide, too wide. Then his mouth curled up and a laugh squeezed its way through taught lips. Oh no, not again. Not on Tucker's watch. Before the next giggle fit could get into full swing Tucker had pulled out his drink bottle, uncapped it, and dumped the entirety of its contents on Danny's stupid guffawing head.

A cough and a splutter later and Danny was sitting on the floor, the stupid grin officially washed from his face.

"Can we talk like actual human beings now?" Tucker asked, the plastic water bottle thudding emptily on the ground.

"I'm not an 'actual human being'. So no. I can't." Danny's voice was short and clipped, his expression stony.

Tucker slumped to the floor next to his best friend, ignoring the puddle he was half sitting in. They sat in silence for a bit, listening to Mr Lancer's muffled voice droning on about adverbs or something. A squeak from someone's shoe echoed down the empty hall. A fluorescent light flickered. Danny winced.

"You wanna borrow my earphones? I've got some chill tunes if you need to like, shut everything out for a bit." Tucker held the tangled cords out to Danny who promptly stuck them in his ears and buried his face in his arms. It was all just, just too much right now.

He threw his hands over his ears when the bell rang, Tucker put a gentle arm around his shoulder.

"C'mon, it's about to get really loud out here." he said quietly, taking Danny by the arm and leading him to their next class. It was history, they were watching a movie. Perfect. Tucker rolled up his jacket and put it on the desk in front of Danny.

"Try and sleep a bit, if you can. You can copy my notes later."

Tucker was a good friend.

Danny put his head down, Tucker's chill playlist still thrumming softly in his ears. He didn't want to sleep, he didn't want to see everyone die again, but his eyes could barely stay open. He read somewhere online that just laying down and resting was still good for you, even if he didn't sleep he could still get some energy back at least, maybe.

He was out like a light the moment his head hit Tucker's jacket.

The dream was never the same. Every time it started as just a regular weird ass dream, he was at the Nasty Burger, but he was sitting at his kitchen table. His friends were there, so was some guy he'd never met, they were talking about monster trucks or... something. The guy he didn't know was showing him a song he wrote, it was gentle and calm, Danny liked it.

That was when the Guys in White showed up. They'd been there before, but not every time. Danny remembered the last dream he had, vaguely, he didn't know he was dreaming now, but he knew what was going to happen next.

"RUN!" he tried to scream, but his voice came out strangled and quiet. Sam and Tucker kept chatting, they couldn't see the danger, the strange guy started playing a different song, he had an acoustic guitar now and was on a stage that wasn't there before.

The Guys in White aimed their ectoguns, knocking off shots around the entire Nasty Burger, Valerie collapsed behind the counter, had she always been there? Jazz was next, she was reading a book on the lounge that had definitely been there the whole time. Danny kept trying to scream, but his throat just couldn't make anything more than a strangled rasping noise.

Sam and Tucker collapsed before him, the music changed again, the guy on the stage had a smoking hole in his chest, he was playing a cello now. The music was calm, soft and gentle, it hadn't stopped during the shooting. The GIW agent at the head of the group turned to Danny, face splitting into an evil grin, flaming hair licking at his temples, it wasn't a GIW agent any more. It had never been a GIW agent.

Danny tried to transform, he needed to save them, they were dead but he NEEDED to save them, if he could go ghost, if he could change he could fix this. His core felt so far away, the cold chill within him just JUST out of his grasp. Why couldn't he change? WHY COULDN'T HE CHANGE?

Tucker sat at his desk in the dark classroom, taking halfassed notes about... something something president Washington. Hadn't they already covered this? A flash at the edge of his vision pulled his tired gaze over to the sleeping mess beside him. Danny made a noise, a whimper? It sounded like he was trying to say something.

"Ru... ru-" Danny muttered, voice broken and, oh god he sounded so terrified.

Tucker's heart splintered into tiny little pieces, and those tiny pieces shattered until his heart was basically just a pile of powder, really sad and devastated powder. Concentrated melancholy, in powder form. He nudged Danny.

"Danny, Danny wake up. Dude you're talking in your sleep, WAKE UP." Tucker was super worried, like beyond overprotective mother worried, if Danny said something incriminating in his sleep, if he said something about PHANTOM-

"Gotta... go-" a strand of silver began to creep through Danny's dark hair.

Oh fuck.

Tucker shook Danny as violently as he subtly could, he needed to wake up. He needed to wake the fuck up right the fuck right NOW. FUCK. It was panic time, shit was getting dangerously identity revealing up in here and Tucker had to do something about it.

More silver was weaving through Danny's hair, flickers of a dark, skin tight costume appearing for only the briefest of anxiety inducing moments. They were sitting in the back corner of the room, no one had noticed that anything was wrong yet, but someone would. Someone would notice SOON if Tucker couldn't get Danny to wAKE THE HECKING FUCK HELL UP.

"Danny I swear to god if you don't wake up I'm going to kill the rest of you. WAKE. UP." How was Tucker supposed to wake him up without drawing attention to- oh good lordy fucK HIS HAIR.

Tucker pulled Danny's hood over his head as quickly as he could nearly half a second after a flash of white overtook his entire scalp. Had anyone noticed?? Tucker glanced around the room, nobody was looking, thank christ Wes wasn't in this class.

Tucker tucked the white strands into the hood as best he could manage before texting Sam as fast as his fingers would allow.

Sam was in the middle of copying some crap about photosynthesis that she already knew when she felt her phone buzz. It was from Tucker, and if his spelling was anything to go by, he was in trouble.

'DIASTRACTION NOWm'

Sam got the gist.

Pretending she was about to vomit everywhere was an easy way out of the classroom, and from there it was just a quick run to the fire alarm. It wasn't the first time Sam had pulled off a fake emergency, she smashed the glass and hit the button with no hesitation, fuck the consequences. From there she just had to figure out where Danny and Tucker were, they all had copies of each other's classes in case of just such emergencies.

History, they had history. She knew which room that was.

Sam took off running, boots thundering through the crowds of students filtering out of their classrooms. Sam could barely hear the alarm over the sound of her heart beat thudding in her ears, she didn't have time to panic and worry, something was wrong and the most important thing right now was finding out what it was and if her friends were okay.

Someone noticed her through the crowd though. As she smashed through a group of kids coming out of a maths class, one guy caught her gaze, one guy decided to follow. Jesus shit she did NOT have the time for this.

Sam detoured down a seperate hallway, the tall redhead on her tail easily keeping pace, why couldn't he just mind his own god damn business for once and, you know what? Sam thought, FUCK IT.

Another detour into an empty classroom and she had him. Bursting through the door after her, Wes looked around fervently, expecting to find Danny in some kind of juicy compromising situation. What he got was a surprise boot to the gut and he hit the deck like a sack of bricks.

Sam didn't waste a second before bolting from the room, Wes had already taken up enough of her precious time.

Wes coughed and wheezed and tried to drag a breath into his aching abdomen, she'd clocked him a damn heavy blow and his body was not cooperating until it had a good few moments to recover from Whatever The Fuck Just Happened.

Damn it he was so close!

"Alright everyone, out onto the parking lot, like we do literally every other week." The history teacher droned, his voice dry. He didn't even bother making sure everyone left the room before walking out himself, it was probably a ghost attack anyway. These things lost their sense of urgency after the last fifty billion times, the only reason he didn't make everyone get back into their seats was for legal reasons and honestly, he could really use the smoke break.

Tucker made a show of getting up to leave, but once he and Danny were the only two left he immediately dropped his shit and whammo'd his fists down on Danny's desk.

"WAKE UP!" He yelled as Sam slid haphazardly into the room, clocking her hip on the teacher's desk as she failed to reign in her momentum. She struggled with her footing for a moment before catching herself and racing up to the back of the class.

"Is he okay? What's happening??" she asked, breathlessly.

Tucker lifted the hood from Danny's bright-ass silvery hair.

"He's transforming in his sleep and I can't get him to wake up." Tucker rushed out in one breath before grabbing Danny by the shoulders. "WAKE. UP. WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP!!!!" Tucker screamed while shaking him with about as much tenderness as an irate Skulker on illegal performance enhancing ghost drugs. Finally, it was enough.

Danny jolted roughly, spasmed almost, and opened his fluorescent green eyes. Sam and Tucker took a quick step back in case he lashed out, but he didn't. Danny's hands gripped at the table hard enough to leave gouges in the sharpie-graffiti stained surface as his breath came out laboured and rasping. Tears smeared across his cheeks and dripped from his nose and chin.

He blinked, hard, before finally raising his head from the desk, looking remarkably disoriented. He was still flickering in and out of ghost form, disappearing from view entirely a few times as well, but it was slowing down as he took a few deep, shuddering breaths. Soon enough he was calm enough to stick to one form, human fortunately.

Sam breathed out a sigh and sat heavily on the nearest chair. He was okay and god she needed to sit down and catch the breath she'd left behind in science class.

Tucker sat beside Danny - who was now vigorously rubbing at his face - and took back his earphones, Sam could hear something that sounded like a cello playing through the small speakers

Tucker got through maybe the first two syllables of the standard 'are you okay?' when he was abruptly cut off by a mildly lisping giggle.

Wes stood half through the doorway, phone out and trained on Danny's previously unstable form. He looked a little pale and seemed to be having trouble breathing but that didn't stop a wide shit eating grin from stretching across his freckled cheeks.

"Gotcha." he sneered before turning on his heel and fleeing in unbridled glee.

Sam had recovered quickly from her previous run, she was on him like the Box Ghost on a roll of bubble wrap. Tucker heard the pounding of two sets of feet followed by a loud THUD, a squeal, and then what sounded suspiciously like a phone being heavily stomped on by a very firmly placed boot. The groaning came after that, punctuated with some extremely foul language that may have been spluttered through a bleeding nose and/or lip.

Sam came back into the room with a crushed phone in one hand and bloody knuckles on the other. She wasn't dicking around, not today.

"You okay Danny?" she asked, getting only a tired glare in response. "Sorry, standard question."

Sam picked up Danny's backpack and put her hand out for him to take, he grasped it gratefully and she pulled him up from his chair as Tucker wound an arm around his waist. With the support of the two actual greatest people in the whole damn world, Danny walked out of the school and into the parking lot where an exasperated principal Ishiyama was counting heads and calling names.

"Equal Rites! What were you three still doing inside? Get into your- Mr Fenton are you alright?" Mr Lancer's angry stride softened into a quick jog, concern weaving it's way through his face at the sight of Danny's red eyes and wet cheeks.

"He uh, had a head on collision with Wes on our way out." said Sam, like a liar. "Took a corner too fast and copped a hit to the nose so his eyes got all teary, but he's okay."

"Wes might need a little help though." Tucker added on. "We offered but he's pretty much convinced we just rammed him on purpose and he threatened to tell everyone we beat him up sooo we kinda just left him on the floor."

Lancer rubbed at his brow, exasperated. He did NOT have the time for Wes shenanigans. He took a quick look at Danny's face, checking for any bleeding, satisfied when he could find none he sent the three on their way to get their names marked off before he headed back to the school building to find Wes.

"Thanks." Danny squeezed Sam and Tucker tenderly, never wanting to let them go. He was so glad they were here, he was so glad they were alive.

"Sleepover at my place tonight." Tucker declared. "No exceptions, there's gonna be cuddle piles and maybe a pillow fort, but definitely lots of these." he gave Danny a big ol' smooch on the forehead and pulled him in for a tight hug. "You're gonna be fine man, you'll be okay."

Sam jumped on and threw her arms around both her boys, pressing her lips against Danny's cheek.

"We're not going anywhere, okay? We're gonna sleep right beside you and tell those fucking nightmares to fuck right off, just like last time." Sam gave him a hearty thump on the back that might have knocked over a regular human, but Danny barely shifted.

What in Ring and Crown's name did he ever do to deserve these two.

That night after a coma inducing amount of junk food and soft drink Danny passed out smushed between Sam and Tuck in what was pretty much the most affectionate and down right adorable Danny Sandwich either of them had ever made.

He dreamed of the three of them beating the shit out of Dan with Fenton Anti-Creep Sticks. He hadn't slept so well in years.


End file.
